The Tottenham Hotspur boss has been speaking about how his team will bounce back from their injuries and suspensions against Wolves
Eric Dier is line for a long spell in the centre of defence for Tottenham Hotspur
Ange Postecoglou has explained where his thinking lies with both Eric Dier and Ashley Phillips as Tottenham look to deal with having their defence torn apart by injuries and suspension.
The Spurs boss confirmed on Friday that Micky van de Ven’s hamstring injury will keep him out until the New Year, as will midfielder James Maddison’s ankle problem. In defence, Postecoglou is struggling for numbers with Cristian Romero suspended for three games and Destiny Udogie will miss Saturday’s match at Wolves after he also picked up a red card in that costly defeat to Chelsea.
One player who will now return to the fore amid those absences is Eric Dier, who played his first minutes of the season after entering the fray from the bench and impressing on Monday night. He also volleyed home a strike in the second half that would have levelled the game for Spurs’ nine men, only to be adjudged marginally offside.
The England international’s contract is running out at the club and with no sign of a new contract or a move away in the summer, there were questions over whether the centre-back would play any part under Postecoglou.
However, the Australian has kept the 29-year-old as part of his squad and instead decided to sell Davinson Sanchez in September.
“I don’t feel the need… irrespective of a player’s individual situation and they’re all in different situations, unless a player expressly says to me or desires he wants to leave and I know his head space is somewhere else, I don’t see any reason to separate him from the group because they’re part of our football club,” said Postecoglou.
“Eric has been part of this football club for a very long time. Every day he’s another one who has trained hard, he hasn’t had a lot of opportunities but that’s because we’ve been pretty settled in terms of our back four and we haven’t had the need to put him in there.
“He’s always been ready to be called up. Now he gets the opportunity. I thought he did well the other night. It was a hard game to come into. Firstly, he’s come on with ten men and then he’s playing with nine men. As a defender, you know there are going to be some challenges there.
“I thought he handled it really well. His experience will be important for us, particularly with Micky’s absence and Romero being out for three games. His experience will be important to us.”
The question now is who partners Dier in Romero’s absence. Left-back Ben Davies has returned from an ankle injury and the Welshman was playing as a centre-back under Postecoglou in pre-season.
That would not create the fastest central pairing though for the team’s high line of defending and Postecoglou was asked whether the quicker 18-year-old summer signing Ashley Phillips is ready to step in if required.
“Ash is part of the first team. He trains every day. He’s available for selection. If he gets an opportunity, then it will be up to him,” he said. “I’m not going to manufacture things for people. Everything they get, they earn.
“If they are selected I think it’s because I think they can help us win. If they’re not selected, they have to keep working hard and wait for their opportunity.”
Postecoglou also gave his verdict on the red cards for Romero and Udogie.
“The Romero challenge wasn’t a great challenge, it deserved to be a red card,” he said. “Destiny, two yellow cards, the second one was a bit of a desperate lunge, a bit of inexperience, I don’t think it was more than that, but he deserved a red card. You take your punishment and you move on.”
Without Van de Ven’s recovery pace against Chelsea and two fewer players on the pitch, Tottenham relied on the remarkable sweeper-keeper skills of Guglielmo Vicario to mop almost everything up behind the backline, but don’t expect to see plenty more of that from the Italian while the Dutchman is out.
“Not necessarily. Obviously we spoke about it the last game that we felt Vic would probably have to be more aggressive with his position in the second half with what we were trying to do, so he started off in a higher position than normal, but 11 v 11 I don’t expect there to be too much of a difference from what he’s done so far,” said Postgecoglou.
“He does have the capacity to do that and it was one of the attractions I had because it does become important when you want to be aggressive with your line, that you have a keeper who is not hesitant coming off it.
“We did speak about it at half-time that we felt like we wanted to be aggressive with our line and being a man down and knowing how Chelsea would set up, there would be fair opportunity that he would have to be ready for that.
“I thought he was outstanding on Monday night. I thought he was brilliant, not just with his goalkeeping, but his whole mentality with at times being a one-man defence with what was coming to him. I thought he was outstanding.”
